Hertz hurts

My Rental Experience with Hertz of Los Cabos, Mexico Rental Agreement F1346820
K McGrane January 16-February 12, 2007
For a pre-paid one month economy car rental for $632.03, on January 16th Hertz rented me a 2007 Blue Chevrolet , Lic#5981AVB in good condition at the Los Cabos airport. I declined to purchase insurance. Late on the night of January 20th, during a rainstorm, a tire blew out on the vehicle; so, after exchanging the tire with the spare the following morning, on January 21st, I returned the vehicle to the agency at their suggestion and wrote a full report. The agency assured me there would be no problem of any charges.

Upon returning to the airport three weeks later, the manager, Eleazar G. Leyva informed me that Hertz was demanding payment of $60.00US for damage to the tire. Anxiously on my way to a plane, I agreed to the charges, more for the sake of expediency rather than out of any sense of obligation. Subsequently, my credit card was charged $499.48 for that problem. I’ve been assured by Traci Atkerson of Hertz Customer Relations in Oklahoma City that that is fully in keeping with standard practices of the car rental industry in most countries.

$500.00 seems a wildly unreasonable amount to pay for such a small item. It’s difficult to imagine how Hertz arrived at that sum. It might have been reasonable if all four tires had been damaged. I understand that tires are more expensive in Mexico than in the States, but surely they are not the price of a round trip ticket. Check every scratch, spare tire, headlight. The vehicles are inadequate to the terrain and they will charge you nine times the price.